Twitter user @RonnieJoice found the poem tacked up inside a bar in North London.
At first glance, this poem seems like something a mopey, angst-ridden teen would write. But when you read it from the bottom up, it suddenly becomes very inspirational. I wish someone had shown this to me when I was a mopey, angst-ridden teen. I might have learned an important lesson about perspective.
Nobody knows who posted this poem inside a London bar. Ronnie Joice just saw it and put in on Twitter, where it quickly went viral. But nothing stays secret on the Internet for long, and the origins of the poem were quickly discovered.
As it turns out, it was written by a teenager: Chanie Gorkin, an 11th grader from Brooklyn, NY. The original was found on poetrynation.com. We may never know how an American high schooler’s poem wound up on the wall of a London bar, but it’s a good thing it did. A lot of people around the world had their day brightened by it, including me. And I’m still pretty angsty.
